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Quotes of the Day for 28 May 2004 - Punishment

Joseph Ignace Guillotin was born at Saintes, France on this day in 1738. A physician, he campaigned for the end of capital punishment, but proposed a quick and painless method of decapitation, available to all classes rather than just the wealthy, which was eventually named for him. Edward Livingston was born at Clermont, New York on this day in 1764. A lawyer and politician, after the War of 1812 he drafted most of the legal code for Louisiana, and became the foremost English-language expert in punishment and prison discipline. That leads me to choose Punishment as today's theme.

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
     - Albert Einstein, 1879 - 1955

Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.
     - Elbert Hubbard, 1856 - 1915

If we escape punishment for our vices, why should we complain if we are not rewarded for our virtues?
     - John Churton Collins, 1848 - 1908

This is his first punishment, that by the verdict of his own heart no guilty man is acquitted.
     - Juvenal

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.
     - Robert Green Ingersoll, 1833 - 1899

Punishment is now unfashionable ... because it creates moral distinctions among men, which, to the democratic mind, are odious. We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility.
     - Thomas Szasz

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